傲慢与偏见:建立在真爱与良好性格上的幸福婚姻

郭 轩

【摘要】傲慢与偏见是一部浪漫爱情小说,描述了主人公在婚恋上的困惑与选择。通过这本书可以发现,一个幸福的婚姻需要双方良好的个性,以及相互之间的真爱。

【关键词】傲慢与偏见;简·奥斯丁;婚姻;个性;爱情

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in the village of Steventon in Hampshire, England.She was primarily educated at home, benefiting from her fathers extensive library and the schoolroom atmosphere created by Mr. Austens live-in pupils. Her closest friend was her only sister, Cassandra, almost three years her senior.

Jane Austen had no formal literary training and she enjoyed no connections with the literary society of her time. The only school mentioned in her life is the Abbey school, which she and her sister attended. She liked to read a lot of literature, and her favorite authors were Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Samuel Richardson, Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth.

1.2 Works and effect

As a child Austen began writing comic stories, now referred to as the Juvenilia. Her first mature work, composed when she was about 19, was a novella,?Lady Susan, written in epistolary form (as a series of letters).

In her early twenties Austen wrote the novels that later became?Sense and Sensibility?(first called “Elinor and Marianne”) and?Pride and Prejudice?(originally “First Impressions”). In 1797, Austen continued writing, revising “Elinor and Marianne” and completing a novel called “Susan” (later to become?Northanger Abbey).?

In 1811, at the age of 35, Austen published Sense and Sensibility, which identified the author as “a Lady.”?Pride and Prejudice?followed in 1813, Mansfield Park?in 1814, and?Emma?in 1815.

Austen began writing the novel that would be called?Persuasion?in 1815 and finished it the following year, by which time, however, her health was beginning to fail.

In 1821, when Jane Austen was still alive, Richard Whately said that “certainly no author has ever conformed more closely to real life, as well as the incidents, as in the characters and descriptions”, Whately also said that “her fables appear to us to be in their own way, nearly faultless”. Sir Walter Scott said “That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with.” [1] Many voices were raised to praise Jane Austen and her works or to bring them down. [2]

Jane Austens works enjoy enormous popularity after almost 200 years. Joe Wright, the director of the film version of Pride and Prejudice (1995), says that there is no doubt that Jane Austen changed the face of the novel. He also says that her characterization is much deeper than in earlier writing and that the psychology of the characters is something that you do not really get in literature beforehand. As readers we feel that she was honest and wrote completely from her heart.[3]

To our generation Jane Austens work is known as famous and well-written. In her time they were not only praising her work, there were also complaints about it. The liberals of Jane Austens time considered her a “humble chronicler of her societys customs” and they neglected her artistic development as well as her social criticism.

2 True love and good personality in a happy marriage

2.1 Introduction

Pride and Prejudice is not only a romantic love story where boy meets girl, its undertones strongly satirize contemporary society:Pride and Prejudice is written as a romantic comedy whose depiction of the characters confusions and difficulties forcefully satirizes middle-class ideals of romance and marriage. Pride and Prejudice also criticizes the social life of its time.

It satirizes the middle class vulgarity of Mrs. Bennet, the childish frivolity of Lydia and Kitty, the aristocratic snobbery and arrogance of Darcy, Miss Bingley, and Lady Catherine, and the servile pomposity of clergymen like Mr. Collins, the novel also exposes the self-indulgent sarcasm, permissiveness, or dependence of middle-class gentlemen like Mr. Bennet and Mr. Bingley and the cynical conformity or complacent indifference of middle-class women like Jane Bennet and Charlotte Lucas[2].

2.2 Marriages in the book

In pride and Prejudice, We may simply divide the four marriages into two groups. They are happy marriages represented by Elizabeth— Darcy and Jane — Bingley as well as unhappy marriages represented by Charlotte — Collins and Lydia — Wickham. What lead the four marriages to a completely different end are the love foundations of their marriages[4].

Since the foundations of the marriage of these two groups are different, the styles of their life are certainly different. In a word, marriage can hardly well survive without love. So Jane Austen and her Pride and Prejudice are welcomed even by modern people who are longing for the peaceful happy marriage based on slowly developed mutual affection.

Basically, there are three types of marriage:

(1) Those who marry for money, position and property,

(2) Those who marry just for passion,

(3) Those who marry for love based on consideration of the persons personal merit as well as his economical and social status.

However, in my opinion, economical is not very important. Actually, what Elizabeth loves is not the wealth of Mr. Darcy, but the liberality and gentle in his personality.

2.3 Personalities of the happy couple

Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, is the main character of Pride and Prejudice. She lives at Longbourn in Hertfordshire with her parents and four sisters, Jane, Mary, Kitty/Catherine, and Lydia. Elizabeth is a young woman of twenty who, like other girls, dreams of marriage and love.

Elizabeth is an independent woman who goes her own ways, which in her case has two distinct meanings; she is not moved by everything she hears and she decides for herself what to think and how to act; she also does a lot of walking in the surrounding landscape. She likes the freedom the out-of-doors gives, and the fresh air that makes it easier to think, she also likes to read and dance. Elizabeth has similarities with Jane Austen, who, as a young woman, enjoyed long country walks, she attended balls in many of the great houses of the neighborhood because she took great pleasure in dancing and we also know that reading was a thing she liked to do. That Elizabeth likes to walk was seen as odd and different. In the beginning of the book she walks the three miles over to Netherfield to take care of her sister who has caught a cold riding horseback to the same place. And the Bingley sisters are upset about her behavior[2].

Although sometimes she could not be called a fair lady, she remained the good virtues of that time. She knew how t o respect others especially the persons who deserved respect. Among her relationships, she liked her father and uncle, for in her opinion they owned the virtue t o be respected.

What makes Darcy appealing to readers is that he is a contradiction – a man of immense power and a manifold attraction that is helplessly in love with a woman who fancies herself indifferent.??Mr. Darcy loves Elizabeth enough to overcome all his objections to her familys connection with Wickham, to the lack of encouragement from her.??He loves her in spite of the censure he will receive from his family and the world.??He loves her in spite of the sense that he should not love her.??Incredibly, he loves her enough to overcome his shyness, his reserve, his proud manners, his seriousness, and his resentment of her refusa

land to overcome these feelings to such an extent as to perform an anonymous act of self-sacrifice in order to buy her some peace of mind[4].

His love for Elizabeth makes him a better person, brings out the excellence of his character.??Her dawning love for him gives depth to her character, gives her experience of more than just laughter at absurdity, and awakens heretofore untouched reserves of gratitude, admiration, and tenderness.

Lets take Lydia/Wickham couple as a contrary. Lydias dependence in thought expresses her dependence in personality. I have said before, Lydia likes searching for officers. While there is an officer in Meryton, she will be trying to attract him. When the regiment is leaving Merytom in one weeks time, she thinks it will not much matter what one wears.

What she does is for the officers whom she is seeking for. She likes others highly appraise and is vainglorious. She is very proud that she runs away with Wickham and marries him before coming back. She is afraid the villagers dont know and put the hand with the ring on the window frame of the carriage on her way back home .For the satisfaction of her vainglory, she doesnt considers what she does is unashamed . Can we say she is a woman who possesses independent personality? Wickham is just the same kind person who is lack of independence. He always desires to unite to rich family. He is seeking for enjoyment and lives a life of idleness but never thinks of that he is poor. He is in debt soon. He is idle and has no desire for progress. He always attempts to get more money from Darcy and lives under anothers roof. It is a best proof that he and Lydia stay at Janes home very long and has no attention to leave .As a person they dont have the foundational human dignity. They are far from being human who have independent personality.

2.4 True love in a happy marriage

Today we connect marriage mostly with love and not convenience but in Austens time it was different. Marriage was and still is something that almost every girl dreams of. Who is going to be their prince and what will the actual wedding be like? As one can see in Pride and Prejudice, girls heads were filled with marriage and dresses and balls. They wanted to be secure, they wanted to have a good time, and they wanted to find a likeable person to be with, which was not always possible in that day and time. People sometimes married for convenience. [5]

The novel makes clear, in the figure of Charlotte Lucas, that to give oneself to a man without desire, to accede to a polite form of prostitution, is to sacrifice what is most valuable in the self, and in the figure of Mr. Bennet, that to submit to lust, or even a giddy impulse (why else would Mr. Bennet have selected the bride he did?) is to forego the possibility of rational happiness.

It is a very good point and it is also very easy to trace in this story. Jane Austen was well aware of the subject - marrying for convenience - when she included the part where Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins. And at the same time she satirizes people who marry out of attraction. The following text in her Pride and Prejudice is to me both comic and tragic.

Marriage proposals might just come once in a lifetime. But Elizabeth is a strong minded woman and certainly knows that she can neither love nor respect Mr. Collins, who proposes to her in a laughable way;

“Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you that I have your respected mothers permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying…”[1]

After this Mr. Collins continues to talk about how Lady Catherine has suggested a marriage for him. Elizabeth explains to him that she cannot agree to this proposal and Mr. Collins begins to tell Elizabeth that she might never get married if she does not accept this proposal. This has no impact on Elizabeth who continues her life as usual. Then Mr. Darcy proposes to her but Elizabeth can not accept this proposal made by Mr. Darcy, which actually starts out very well,

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” [1]

But Mr. Darcy continues in a very annoying fashion. He is criticizing her family and their behavior while proposing to her and I believe we all would have said no to such a proposal.

It is quite clear Elizabeths idea of happiness in marriage “has to do with individual compatibility and affection”. She cant bear a marriage without love, which is doomed to be a failure. So when Charlotte informs her of the engagement to Collins, her astonishment is so great that it overcomes the bounds of decorum and she cannot help crying out, Elizabeth couldnt have supposed Charlotte could sacrifice every better feeling to worldly advantage. Elizabeth expresses her love explicitly in her answer to her fathers doubts of the proud, unpleasant Darcy: “I do, I do like him,” she replied with tears in her eyes. “I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable.” Holding such belief on marriage, together with her extreme intelligence and many virtues, Elizabeth wins Darcys true love. She gets the most fortunate marriage at last.

Besides, there is another couple whose marriage is also considered as a fortunate one. That is the marriage of Jane and Bingley. At the first ball, she has a good impression of Bingley, and it is the same to Bingley. After the ball, “When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, and expressed to her sister how very much she admired him.” Later on a visit to Bingleys, Janes love affair with Bingley is advanced. Even Bingley is apparently on the point of proposing to Jane. Actually Bingly is attracted by Janes tenderness and beautiful appearance, while Jane is attracted by his gentle manner. Based on this point, their love grows. It guarantees a happy marriage, and they can produce the first real and successful marriage in this novel. [5]

For me, the most telling moment, the moment that most clearly shows Elizabeths unconscious sense of intimacy with Darcy, is their first conversation at Hunsford.??Darcy comes in to find Elizabeth alone.?Part of their awkward conversation centres on the marriage of Mr. Collins and Charlotte.??When Darcy remarks that Lady Catherine did a great deal to improve the cottage, Elizabeth replies, “I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.”This allusion to Mr. Collinss subservience assumes that Mr. Darcy will understand her, that he shares her satirical view of flatterers.??Then, when Darcy observes that “Mr. Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife,” Elizabeth makes a remark that is wholly inappropriate to general conversation, indeed, that is appropriate only to people who have reached some level of intimacy and understanding.??Elizabeth says, “His friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had.??My friend has an excellent understanding, though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did.”??To speak so frankly about her closest friend, to confide her doubts so openly, Elizabeth must have a sense that she and Darcy share the same view of happiness, marriage, and wisdom.??In short, she is aware on some level that she and Darcy are soul mates.

Just as Elizabeths growing attachment to Darcy is implied, so Darcys merits are shown rather than stated.??I am always interested when I meet someone who finds Mr. Darcy too rude and cold to be a romantic hero – someone like my daughters British Literature teacher, who invited me to speak on Jane Austen to her class, and who whispered that if it werent for Laurence Olivier, she would not be able to stand Mr. Darcy.

What makes Darcy appealing to me is that he is a contradiction a man of immense power and a manifold attraction who is helplessly in love with a woman who fancies herself indifferent.??Mr. Darcy loves Elizabeth enough to overcome all his objections to her familys connection with Wickham, to the lack of encouragement from her.??He loves her in spite of the censure he will receive from his family and the world.??He loves her in spite of the sense that he should not love her.??Incredibly, he loves her enough to overcome his shyness, his reserve, his proud manners, his seriousness, and his resentment of her refusal – and to overcome these feelings to such an extent as to perform an anonymous act of self-sacrifice in order to buy her some peace of mind.